*WEDDING.BLOG.LINK*

Craig's Site: Nova Scotia budget

Craig has some good info on the news from the NS budget released yesterday. Go have a look. I would expect a conservative government to be harsher than this, but there's a lot of interesting stuff. Stay tuned to Craig's blog to hear more commentary on this.

Singapore's Creative Reports Earnings Dip: "Net profit for the three months ended March 31 slumped 72 percent to
US$15.9 million (euro12.18 million), from US$57 million, in the same
period a year ago."

Fresh off the heels of yesterday's disappointment, there's NEWS about Mr. Hoo. And it's not good.

Most telling point from the article:

• Creative: 2M players, $334M
• Apple: 5.3M players, $1B

Just like to point out that we haven't heard much from my boy Hoo lately.

His $100 M campaign to overtake the iPod must be going so smoothly I'm not noticing it. And neither is anyone else.

I'm all for market compettition, but this guy was/is a joke.

Hoo? Where are you Hoo?

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Some of you may remember my near fascination with the multicoloured iPod sheaths Apple started producing last year.

Here's a great story involving just how great these little socks really are. It brightened my day.

Anyone looking for some sweet sweet Tiger eye candy, (and maybe looking to get hyped up about the BIG RELEASE DATE - April 29th) : MacDailyNews has grouped all the video links together for you!

Don't forget to check out the Automator, and Spotlight videos, especially.

Generation Next? from 1UP.COM:

"Photorealistic graphics, streaming multimedia content, complete
Internet integration and revolutionary new kinds of gameplay are all
promises of next generation gaming. Right now, it's all executives
blowing hot air and technobabble, but in just a short few weeks, the
battle for the living room starts again, as Nintendo, Microsoft and
Sony take the wraps off their new babies and show the world their
visions of the industry's future."

Article on the new game console systems. Getting excited.....

So this weekend (Saturday) Morgie, and Dan-o and I took a trip in to Sack-vegas (oooooh,... Sack-vegas....) to see some folks (DC, AngstyRob and Em-The-Anti-Angst), and, in Morgan's case, get some work done.

I love being in Sackville in the spring time. It's so refreshing and not-city. Also I love the people we saw. I miss them frequently - and thanks to the interweb (sweet, sweet interweb) we can stay in contact.

Apart from the very relaxing meal at Joey's, some great conversation with some great martime folks (again, Em fits into this category despite her dubious heritage) it was a great opportunity to foster some relationships that never get the attention they deserve but manage to thrive anyway. I think we're just hip people, and we're hip to each other. I can't ever remember not having a good time with any of these folks and I hope we manage to remain buddies even when the inevitability of time and distance comes between us.

The Angster and I have already started on a revolution of sorts, which we'll probably both be reporting on more and more in the coming months.

I picked up on a new revolution that I can help DC out with now though. His most recent blog entry evokes some ideas I've had myself, and I think - once again - DC and I are on similar wavelengths and should get together.

I've been interested in the idea of "the consumer as agent" or maybe "the purchase as vote". By this I mean (simplified), in this free market economy, when a consumer spends money, they are effectively voting for something and can thereby effect change on the world.

EX: If I buy bank stock, I'm effectively saying to the bank "Good job. I agree with your direction as a company and feel that I should give you money to help you keep moving in the same direction". Now, most people don't buy stock that way (they buy stock because they think they can make money off of it) and they don't realise that their purchase equates to a vote for the procedures the bank is following. (and this is why we get the situation of people who buy bank stock, then complain that their service fees are going up, then go buy more stock, then complain when service fees go up - they have effectively voted for higher service fees without (refusing) realizing it)

CLOSER TO HOME EX: If I go to the grocery store, and there are three types of lettuce right next to each other: one is from Brasil and one is from Ontario and one is from New Brunswick. The one from brazil is 20 cents cheaper than the others, and the Ontario lettuce is 10 cents cheaper than the NB stuff. It's basically all the same lettuce. If I buy the Brasillian lettuce, not only am I sending my money to Brasil, but I'm 'voting' for Brasillian lettuce, and also for foreign produce in general. The grocery store will say - "we sold 15 mega tonnes of Brasillian lettuce, and only 10 of Canadian lettuce. Our customers must want more Brasillian lettuce. Let's not put Canadian lettuce on the shelves anymore"

More on this later maybe, but this will probably be enough to get some type of response from you, oh wonderful viewer.

The Keyboard Ranter sent me a link to the funniest story I have ever seen. I would hate to be the victim of such rage, but it's damn funny to safely observe from the interweb-sidelines.
I think M# will find this especially funny.

Here's the link to the main part of the story. Don't forget to 'view seller's other auctions'. It's well worth the time to explore this saga completely.

go watch these videos:

• video 1
• video 2

And then go read about how it works. This blows my mind.

So, after a ~one week training hiatus, JD is back to deliver your Sonic Infusion (however you prefer to take that - Sometimes I think of it this way and sometimes I think of it that way).

I learned lots about XSLT/XSL-FO last week, and they may come up in blogs to come, but today I want to talk about something much less geeky: menstruation.

For a long time now I've been thinking about how it doesn't make sense that we (I guess I mean 'women' when I say we, so not really me at all) create this mountain of waste , walk the line of poisoning ourselves (again, I mean 'women', and not me in particular), and spend a fortune, with/on feminine sanitation products.

I have always thought it would make a lot of sense to provide a tax credit (at the very least) to menstruating women to help compensate for the mountains of money they must spend on their monthly functions. I bet if you count sanitation products, pain killers and tea, you're probably looking at 2-5%+ of most women's income (that's on about 30k/year), without even including lost productivity (due to cramps, irritability, inability to concentrate, etc). That's ridiculous. When you think of it this way, it's like men automatically make 5% more money because they don't have to buy these things. I know it's not as clear cut as this, but it definitely is substantial.

I didn't however, have any suggestions for how to solve the waste/poisoning problem.

There's a new product out to help solve these problems and more. I know there will be many ladies out there not to impressed by this idea (morgie) but I think I like it (and that probably doesn't mean much, because, as we went over already, I am not a woman). As the article states, it's made of "medical grade non-allergic silicone" so it's sure to be healthier for you than bleached, fibrous, carcinogenic synthetic cotton. Plus, it fits the "treehugger" criteria as well - "‘Silicone is derived from silica which is found in sandstone and quartz, one of the most abundant resources on our planet.’" (explore the links at the end of the above linked article for more info)

Just something to think about for all of us (and this time I mean men and women).